Thursday, October 20, 2011

Book Review: Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

Review: Dead and Gone
Series: Sookie Stackhouse – Book 9
Author: Charlaine Harris
No of Pages: 312
Release Date: 5 May 2009

Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her job as a cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, even though she sometimes gets tired of the constant chatter – and not just the gossip; Sookie can read minds. It’s taken time, but she’s finally found cute, dateable guys whose minds she can’t read. And okay, so most of them happen to be vampires, but no man is perfect, right?

All of the humans in Bon Temps have had dealings with the vamps – mysterious, seductive creatures who ‘came out’ a few years back. Now the weres and shifters have decided to follow the lead of the undead and reveal their existence to the ordinary world.

Sookie already knows about them, of course – her brother turns into a panther at the full moon, she’s friend to the local Were pack, and Sam, her boss at Merlotte’s bar, is a shifter.

The great Were revelation goes pretty well at first – then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found in the parking lot of Merlotte’s. Though Sookie never cared much for the victim, no one deserves such a horrible death, and she agrees to use her telepathic talent to track down the murderer.

What Sookie doesn’t realise is that there is a far greater danger that this killer threatening Bon Temps: a race of unhuman beings, older, more powerful and far more secretive than the vampires or the werewolves is preparing for war. And Sookie is an all-too human pawn in their ages-old battle…

My Thoughts:

I have always been fond of this series because of its light hearted content, but this book broke that chain.

Wars are brewing left right and centre in Sookie's world. Vampires are taking over other vampires land and werewolves are at each other’s throats as well. Add into the mix Sookie’s fairy heritage and the war that they are waging, and you have the perfect brew for a really depressing novel.

Dead and Gone left me feeling really bad, Harris might not be killing off central characters, but she definitely killed off a few loved ones in this book, and I really don’t think it was necessary. The fairy war came to a head at the end of this book and it took a few characters with it that left me feeling pretty depressed after it.

Sookie was also left scarred after her ordeal with the fairies but she should recover, hopefully.

At the end of this book, I felt depressed, not just a little sad but down in the dumps for a couple of days. There was so much loss, so much death, and for what? A part fairy that screws vampires and attracts trouble.

I still flew through this book, and I still loved it, but I was left with the thought of, where does it end? What makes Sookie so special that all these people are willing to die for her? Vampires regenerate but even so, they can still die and frequently do where Sookie is concerned. Fairies are a dying race and how many were taken out purely because some big wig wanted to finish off Sookie because she was a half breed.

I still love Sookie and I love that she is growing stronger and wiser with every novel, but surely no one could expect such loyalty.

Others in this series:
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead in the Family
Dead Reckoning

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